Childrens
Pesticide Exposure to be Curtailed Under U.S. Senate Education Bill; Historic
Agreement Between Environmental, Health, Education and Labor Groupsand Chemical
and Pest Management Industry On School Pesticide Use

Washington,
DC, June 19, 2001  If it becomes law, schools may become safer for
children and teachers, as a result of a provision in the education bill
passed last week in the U.S. Senate. The legislation, resulting from an
historic agreement between organizations representing the environment,
children and labor and groups representing the chemical and pest management
industry and agriculture, the U.S. Senate included in its education bill
legislation (adopted by unanimous consent today) to protect children from
pesticides and promote safer pest management practices in schools. The
legislation, the School Environment
Protection Act (SEPA) of 2001, sponsored by Senator Robert Torricelli
(D-NJ), is included in the Better Education for Students and Teachers Act, S.1,
which amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

This
legislation represents a straightforward approach to promote school pest
management practices that minimize risk to children and notify and provide
safety information to parents and school staff when pesticides are used
in the schools, said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides,
a national environmental and public health organization. The legislation
resulted from a good faith effort on the part of groups normally at odds
with each other to provide parents and school staff with information on
pesticide use and pest management in local schools, said Mr. Feldman.
He continued, We are pleased that the industry and public interest
organizations are able to find common ground and adopt a meaningful, national,
pesticide right-to-know and pest management policy.

Thirty-one
states have taken some level of action in protecting children from pesticide
use in, around or near their schools, according to a Beyond Pesticides
report, The Schooling
of State Pesticide Laws-2000. However, state laws are uneven and
inadequate across the country.

Some
existing state laws have adopted standards that are tougher than some
of the provisions in SEPA. However, no one state law contains all the
elements included in this important piece of legislation adopted by the
U.S. Senate today. Under existing state laws, 16 states require prior
notification be provided to parents before a pesticide application is
made to their childs school. This new legislation will bring the
other 34 states up to this minimum and essential standard. Also under
existing state laws, only seven states require schools use a pest management
system that relies on non-chemical and chemical strategies, focusing on
alternative pest management methods and on minimizing pesticide use. SEPA
will require all schools across the country to implement such pest management
strategies.

This
legislation will provide parents and teachers across America with a basic
level of safety and health protection, said Kagan Owens, Beyond
Pesticides program director.

The
School Environment Protection Act of 2001 (SEPA):

requires
local educational agencies to implement a school pest management policy
considering sanitation, structural repair, mechanical, biological,
cultural and pesticide strategies that minimize health and environmental
risks as developed by the state and EPA approved;

requires
universal notification 3 times per year (at the beginning of the school
year, midyear, and once for summer session) of school pesticide use;

provides
parents and school staff access to health and toxicity information on
all pesticides used in schools;

establishes
a registry for parents and school staff to sign-up to receive 24 hour
pre-notification of a pesticide application;

provides
information on the pesticides adverse health effects on the notice
provided via the registry;

requires
signs to be posted 24 hours prior to the pesticide application and remain
posted for 24 hours;

does
not preempt state or local school from adopting a policy that exceeds
provisions of the act.

Children
are among the least protected population group when it comes to pesticide
exposure, according to the National Academy of Sciences report, Pesticides
In the Diets of Infants and Children (1993). Children, due to
their small size, greater intake of air and food relative to body weight,
developing organ systems and other unique characteristics, are at higher
risk than adults to pesticides. Numerous studies document that children
exposed to pesticides suffer elevated rates of childhood leukemia, soft
tissue sarcoma and brain cancer. Studies link pesticides to childhood
asthma and respiratory problems. Scientists increasingly associate learning
disabilities or attention deficit disorders with low level toxic exposure
because of their affect on the central nervous system.

In
fall 1999, the General Accounting Office (GAO), at the request of Senator
Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), conducted a national review of the extent to
which pesticides are used in and around the nations 110,000 public
schools and the magnitude of the risk of exposure to children. The GAO
report, Pesticides:
Use, Effects, and Alternatives to Pesticides in Schools (GAO/RCED-00-17),
found that the data on the amount of pesticides used in the nations
public schools is neither available nor collected by the federal and most
state governments. The report also found that EPA is not doing enough
to protect children from pesticides, and that there is limited information
on how many children are exposed to pesticides in schools. The GAO cited
EPAs analysis of the Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposure
Surveillance System, documenting 2,300 school pesticide exposures from
1993-1996. Because most of the symptoms of pesticide exposure, from respiratory
distress to difficulty in concentration, are common and may be assumed
to have other causes, it is suspected that pesticide-related illness is
much more prevalent than presently indicated.

Beyond
Pesticides/NCAMP is a national, grassroots membership organization, founded
in 1981, that collaborates with community-based organizations and people
seeking to improve protections from pesticides and promote alternative
strategies that reduce or eliminate pesticide use.